A Little Jealousy (167 cm)

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(Side - Neko: Makoto Komiya)

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Jealous.

“So it was the circuit that was the problem. That darn prototype kept overloading because the resistors on the filter were incorrect… Gah, maybe I shouldn’t have tried to do it on my own. Circuitry has never been my thing.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself Mayumi-san. You made it this far all on your own. Shouldn’t you be proud your design worked long enough to get data? This is just a small set back that can be fixed with a little know-how.”

She might have been jealous.

“Awww, thanks Takkun. Though, does that mean you’re offering? I know you’re great with robotics, but this machine’s pretty dangerous. Plus with repairs and troubleshooting, I might need more than just a day of your time.”

For those two to be so close with each other, so excitedly talking… She was a tad jealous.

“Do you think I’d shy away from that? This is the future we’re talking about here. If you need me to help, I’m at your beck and call. I’ll tell you what. We’ve got the Golden Week holiday and our school’s founding day back to back. I can stay at your place to work on it however long you need me to.”

“Eh? Stay over? I mean, that’s fine by me, but you know it’s just me and Makoto this week. I told you that Dad’s meeting a client in Taiwan.”

Hearing them arrange holiday plans without a care in the world made her somewhat jealous.

“Neko will be fine with it. She’s here right now. I’m actually on speakerphone.”

“Oh? Makoto’s with you now?”

“I’ll head home and pack for a few nights’ stay. I’ll be there today.”

“Today? I mean, I’m fine with you coming bu-”

“I’ll look at the prototype and give it a once over as soon as I can.”

Honestly, her ‘close friend’ arranging to stay over with her older sister made her a little jealous. However, Takumi Endou, the third year high school student she had been celebrating the start of their holidays with at the local café, had completely ignored her say in their holiday plans.

“Makoto-chan, you’re bending your spoon,” her friend from the drama club, Misuzu, pointed out her unconscious action with a frown.

“Oh, sorry.”

Makoto loosened her grip on her spoon with a sigh. She took a bite of the lemon custard cake she had ordered, pouting while she licked the spoon clean of the tart, yellow custard in her mouth. Though she enjoyed the flavor, seeing Takumi’s content, warm smile as he hung up his phone tasted bittersweet. What made her snack more difficult to stomach was what he said immediately after ending the phone call.

“Sorry, Neko, Fujii-san. Seems like my holiday schedule’s been filled up. Do you two have any plans for the break?”

If there was one thing in the world that really irritated Makoto, it was the fact that her close friend had a one track mind. He never considered others’ opinions whenever he was thinking about science or whenever he was talking to her sister. The same thing that happened here: he had completely ignored the fact that she lived at the same home he was going to be staying over at.  

Filling in for her silence, Misuzu responded to Takumi’s question. “I found this lovely shop that sells imported tea leaves, so I wanted to go visit it to find something interesting. Do you two have any preferred types of tea? I can take a look while I’m there.”

Makoto stayed silent. She moved from her cake to her milk coffee and drank it slowly. She kept the cup on her lips as a sign she was not in the mood to speak.

“English style would be nice, I guess,” Takumi shrugged. “I’m not much of a fan of Japanese tea because of all the tea ceremonies my mother made me attend. Neko, you can attest to that, right?”

Even hearing her nickname did not rouse Makoto from her mood. Takumi was not bothered by her obvious cry for attention. He wasn’t even that engaged in speaking with Misuzu. Instead, he was fiddling with his smartphone. Upon seeing the boy enter his ‘phone-hiding’ pose of holding the device close to him while in a slumped possession, she knew he was once again distracted. 

For a few years now, there were occasions where Takumi would hide whatever was on his phone. He would never let anybody see what he was looking at. Even Makoto, his closest friend, never got to see it, though she honestly did not want to see it. She did not need to. From casual observations over the years, it was easy to figure out he was looking at a photo. The idea of high school boys keeping a photo of the girl they liked was very passé but it seemed Takumi was still following the trend. That was not what pulled her away from prying further however. It was the expression he made whenever he looked at the photo. His eyes were alert and his smile, though small, was noticeable. The only person he’d make such a love-struck affection for had to be Mayumi, in her opinion. The thought of him looking perversely at a picture of her older sister made Makoto’s stomach turn.  

When he finally put away his phone, Takumi grabbed his things. With a wave, he announced, “I’ll be heading off to pack my things. Fujii-san, have a good break. And Neko, I’ll be at your place in two hours.”

Without even giving either of the two girls time to reply, the high school boy left the café, leaving Makoto and Misuzu alone with only their cups of coffee and tea left to finish.

“Sheesh, Endou-kun always does things at the drop of the hat when it comes to your big sister. It must be tough liking a guy like that, Makoto-chan. Even that short but dynamic body has no effect on him,” Misuzu took advantage of Takumi’s absence to speak to her friend about more private matters.

Makoto drank the remainder of her lukewarm coffee in a single gulp and slammed her cup back down on the wooden table. “It’s not like I like him. It’s just the thought of Takumi making moves on Mayu-nee makes me want to vomit. Sis is a genius, but she doesn’t seem to realize that the only person that single-minded idiot is interested in is her. I sooooo don’t want him as my brother.”

“You’re really not honest with yourself’,” Misuzu laughed. “This is why we gave you the leading role when we did our play of Tsundere Cinderella.”

“I’m NOT tsundere!” scowled Makoto. She crossed her arms and sank into her seat. “Why would I be interested in a science nerd like him, anyways…?”

“Well, I suppose the Drama Club’s lead actress falling in love with the Robotics Club’s president does sound like the setting for a play,” her friend admitted. “But fiction can be based on reality, can’t it? Didn’t you tell me you got really into gaming in middle school just so you could find ways to break the ice with him?”

“I… Well… I guess I did,” Makoto couldn’t deny that she had done that. She had become a bit of a gamer girl since then.

“I know you like him, and that’s why you always suck it up and let him do as he pleases. That’s no good, Makoto-chan. Even if he doesn’t realize it, aren’t you eating out of the palm of his hand?”

“I know… I don’t need you to tell me. I’ve been holding back for years now.”

“You two met in middle school, right? We’re in our last year of high school, and you’re both 18 already. It won’t be much longer until we graduate. Are you just going keep letting him get away with this all your life? If you really don’t like how he does things, you need to call him out on it. And if you really do like him, you should just tell him. Be honest with yourself. Either tell him off or confess to him already. ”

The accuracy of her friend’s statement was not something she wanted to argue. She was well aware she could simply tell Takumi how bothered she was. She also wanted to confess her true feelings for him, but if she did, it might strain their friendship. And even if it didn’t, she might also trouble her sister who often asked Takumi for help with her designs. She didn’t want to risk losing the relationship they already had. 

Makoto silently waited with crossed arms for Misuzu to finish her tea. She’d have to get home and clean up before Takumi came over. She wondered if he even realized that her sister wasn’t home yet. If he was staying the night, it would be just Makoto and him until Mayumi returned.

“Would it kill him to look at me more? I just want to teach that moron a lesson he’ll never forget.”

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Overpopulation, overcrowding, and overconsumption were three major concerns in the world. With the increasing number of humans and the limited amount of space and resources on the planet, it would only be a few more generations before humans exhausted all that the Earth had to offer. Certainly, if humanity did not find a solution to the problem, it would become very difficult to sustain life in the future.

Makoto’s older sister, Mayumi Komiya, was dedicated to creating a start-up company to help resolve those concerns. With a few of her friends and a handful of ideas, they pooled their money and searched for sponsors to make that dream a reality. They worked together to engineer new devices and create innovative designs to benefit human society.

But despite their teamwork, the prototype Mayumi was working on was something developed on her own time. The Compression Chamber, as she so aptly called it because she was not good at coming up with names, was a pet project that Mayumi had to work on by herself because the concept behind the device held risks none of her teammates were willing to take. The setback of not being backed by her co-workers was not going to stop Mayumi however.

“Mayu-nee spent a year and a half building this machine from scratch in her friend’s run-down shed. They moved three months ago, though, so Mayu-nee had to cram this thing into our guest room. I hope you weren’t expecting to sleep in here tonight. The room is cramped enough as is.” Makoto explained her sister’s development of her device to Takumi with disinterest. She had heard the story from her sister countless times and was even able to witness the machine in use during test runs. 

“Has it really been that long since I last came? Well, whatever. Mayumi-san sure is something. I can’t wait to see the schematics for how she got this to work. I’ll be up all night all week so I can figure out this baby.” 

“You’re seriously going to sleep over this week…? You sure are something, Taku,” Makoto shook her head as she let her friend enter the guest room that was her sister’s current storage room for her device.

Takumi did not seem to hear her as he immediately set his bag down in the corner of the guest room and crossed over the tangled wires without saying a single word. His one-track mind was at work again. Makoto had not really expected a reply. In front of her genius sister’s invention, just about anybody would be distracted.

The tentatively named Compression Chamber filled up most of the Komiya family guest room. It was a steel circular platform that was 2 meters in diameter with a retractable metallic dome atop the platform. Dozens of colored wires connected into a rectangular box at the base of the platform, hooking the machine to the rest of the machinery and computers in the room. 

According to her sister’s notes and explanations, the device was made to reduce objects to a smaller size. To reduce the amount of storage space humans needed, the Compression Chamber was Mayumi’s first foray into solving humanity’s overcrowding problem.  Storage boxes could be compressed to a tenth of its original size, unused furniture could be made more compact, more space could be opened up for people to live.  In a cramped island nation such as Japan, every square meter was important. If research could be completed on the device, Makoto’s sister would be renowned for both her advancement in science and her betterment of mankind.

Takumi had offered to fix the circuitry component of the Compression Chamber, but Makoto wondered if a high school student could even be of any use. Takumi may have had experience with robotics but Mayumi was a prodigy. Her inventions had to be beyond his level of expertise.

“Let’s see here… Yup, looks like the amplifiers’ resistors aren’t the right values… The filters too… And some parts don’t look like they were soldered properly… but if everything else already worked for her first few test runs, it really might just be the resistors. This will be an easier fix than I thought.”

Then again, due to Mayumi’s basic understanding of circuits, it was possible that a high school student could be superior to her in some aspects. Makoto had no clue what Takumi was talking about, but he seemed to be confident about his ability to fix the machine.

Makoto knew her friend’s work with her sister’s machine had nothing to do with her, but she felt compelled to watch. As much as it irritated her, she couldn’t leave Takumi alone in the room. What if he hurt himself? Her sister couldn’t get her project approved by her co-workers because of the dangers of the machine. If Takumi messed up while tinkering with the electronics, who knew what would happen. As such, she had to keep an eye on Takumi.

Makoto shook her head in frustration. Her friend had no consideration for what she was going through. All he was interested in was her sister Mayumi and her inventions.  Mayumi wasn’t even home, but he just straight up decided to sleep over at their home. He hadn’t even turned his head in Makoto’s direction since he was allowed inside.

Ring. Ring.

“Hm?” Makoto’s smartphone rang. Glancing at the Caller ID, she saw that it was her older sister. For a moment, the girl thought to tell Takumi, but seeing the boy search through his backpack for his spare circuit parts, she decided against it. He wouldn’t have paid attention to her anyways. The younger Komiya sibling snuck into the hallway to take the call. “Hello? Is that you, Sis?”

“Hello, Makoto. Is everything okay back home?”

“Yeah. Takumi’s looking at your stuff right now. He says that it should be an easy fix or something like that.”

“Really? Then that means I can get back to testing!” Mayumi’s voice over the phone seemed to express relief. “Thank goodness, these little guys can finally get back to normal.”

“These guys…?” Makoto picked up on her sister’s last sentence. “Mayu-nee… did you… did you do live testing with that shrink dome thing?”

“………” For a moment, the other end of the line was silent. It took some time before Makoto’s sister responded. “It was just a few ants that found their way into the chamber… at first... Then I thought of trying lab rats…”

“So you shrank actual animals?? And they lived?” Makoto was in disbelief. She could accept shrinking boxes and furniture because she had seen her sister test the device once, but animals were another entirely different matter.

“They’re more durable when they’re small. I wrote my observations and left it on the desk in my room. It’s perfectly safe, Makoto. Don’t worry, your sister isn’t doing anything that’s too bad.”

The ‘too’ attached to the ‘bad’ was what worried Makoto. As she spoke with her sister, she began walking towards her sister’s bedroom. She wanted to scold her big sister for all of the top secret, possibly illegal experiments she was working on, but she felt an ordinary high school girl like her should not get involved.

“In any case, can you make sure to tell Takkun I won’t be home until tomorrow night? He hung up on me before I could say anything. I need to get a few components from Shibuya, Akihabara, and Ikebukuro. It’ll be faster to go in person than to wait for the orders to come, but all of the traveling is going to be such a pain. It’ll be cheaper if I sleep at the lab.”

Makoto opened the door to her sister’s room while repeatedly saying, “Sure. Sure.” She understood that her sister’s second home was her start-up's lab. She had grown used to it over the years.

“You should tell Takkun to go home tonight. You both may be 18 now, but it’s not good for a high school boy and girl to be alone in a house together,” Mayumi lectured her while reminding her sister of her moral concerns. “Tell him I’m fine to teach him about the device when I get back.”

“Sure. Sure. Will do,” Makoto uncaringly answered. She found her sister’s notes on her desk and started to flip through them. “See you later, Mayu-Nee.”

“Okay. Enjoy Golden Week, Makoto.”

The phone call ended when Makoto pressed the End Call button. She understood her sister’s concerns. They were the same concerns she had that Takumi never took notice of. Takumi was always doing things at his own pace. While he was very willing to help Makoto’s sister, even Mayumi knew when he was a little too pushy. If there was some way for Makoto to get back at her friend for his single-minded obliviousness, she would take it.

“… Wait…”

Glancing through her big sister’s notes on the safety of compressing living beings, Makoto realized she had the perfect opportunity to get Takumi to learn his lesson. She had seen her sister compress objects before when Mayumi was testing if her device was still working after bringing it back to the house. The controls she had seen were simple enough for a layman to manage. 

Taking a seat on her sister’s bed, the younger Komiya sibling began to look through her sister’s reports. If Makoto could get a better grasp of how the chamber worked and confirm what Mayumi had just told her, she could definitely make use of it. It would be some time until Takumi finished adjusting the Compression Chamber, but when he did, she could easily trick him. She only needed a little bit of acting to make him fall for it. 

As Makoto skimmed through her sister’s research, a mischievous smile formed on her face. She was going to enjoy her time alone with Takumi.

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(Side - Taku: Takumi Endou)

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Takumi Endou was no idiot. By his third year of high school, he had won three gold and two silver medals in robotics competitions with his clubmates. His knowledge and skill at circuitry was impressive for someone of his age. Ever since he was a child, he was interested in machines. How did his toy work? What could he do to make it cooler? How could he improve it? Those questions filled his mind constantly and would bother him until he found the answers to them.

This was how he came to know Mayumi Komiya. When he was in middle school, Mayumi, who was six years his senior, had made a name for herself as the former ace designer for his school’s robotics club. Aspiring to live up to his predecessor, he searched for and eventually approached her. Not only was she willing to teach him, she had also introduced him to her younger sister, Makoto.

He fell in love that day. Takumi often went to visit Makoto as a classmate at the Komiya household and would also get to see Mayumi. In her free time, Mayumi taught Takumi all she could about machine design, and when she was busy, he’d pal around with Makoto playing video games. To him, that was the highlight of his youth. Makoto was one of the few people who’d go along with him despite his quirks.

And with Mayumi, Takumi gained many skills thanks to the genius college student from digital modeling to welding. Though he was young, he took to Mayumi’s lessons quickly and her mentorship led to his middle school robotics competition victories. He was proud of the accomplishments he had made under her tutelage, so, upon entering the same high school as Makoto, he wanted to give back as best as he could. Takumi earnestly admired Mayumi.

The one topic Mayumi had difficulty with was always circuitry. Takumi took it upon himself to learn and practice as much as he could with electronics so he could help his mentor whenever she needed it. No matter the complexity or the difficulty, he pushed himself to be as best as he could in circuits to better assist his mentor. All the while, Makoto kept an eye on him to make sure he wasn’t going overboard. He appreciated her concern for him whenever he was being reckless.

Unfortunately, Takumi’s high school years were a busy time for everyone. Mayumi was getting her start-up company off the ground while Makoto had been recruited by the drama club and was one of the club’s key actresses along with Misuzu Fujii. Both Komiya siblings were amazing in how they made great accomplishments with whatever they applied themselves to. He, too, was busy with several different robotics competitions to prepare for thanks to the seriousness of the club president and club advisor of his club, but he wasn’t as talented as them. He had to spend so much effort that he often lost track of time. There weren’t many chances for Takumi to visit the Komiya household. At best, class changes had him together with Makoto in their last year.

Now that there was time for him to visit the Komiya family again, he wanted to make the most of it. He’d help out Mayumi and spend time with Makoto for the holidays. It was the perfect plan for his Golden Week.

“Okay. There shouldn’t be any more problems with the circuit,” Takumi closed the panel that hid the circuitry for the Compression Chamber.

“Good work. I was wondering how long it’d take.”

Makoto gave Takumi a bottle of water. When she entered the room, he did not notice, but he was grateful for the refreshment. He noticed she had also put on her glasses. She was either playing a video game while waiting on him or doing some reading. The portable game console in her other hand told him the answer. Being careful not to damage the compression device, the high school student moved toward the doorway before uncapping the water bottle.

“Sorry, Neko. You didn’t have to stay in the room, y’know?” Takumi told his friend before drinking half of the water bottle in a single breath.

“And leave you to have free reign of my house? I’m not that crazy,” Makoto remarked dryly. “Besides, you were so in the zone, I didn’t even have to turn down the volume.”

“I didn’t notice at all,” admitted Takumi. He knew of his tendency to get absorbed in his work, so he was not going to lie about not realizing. “In any case, I don’t think this will overload anymore. Mayumi-san should be able to use it however many times she needs to. I can’t wait until she gets back.”

Takumi was looking forward to seeing the Compression Chamber in action. The culmination of one and a half years of Mayumi Komiya’s individual efforts had made a machine that could revolutionize the world. He had gotten to see how the circuitry worked and was even able to improve it, but the remainder of the device was still lost to him. He wanted to see what his genius mentor had created.

“Ah, about that. Mayu-nee’s not coming home tonight. She called me earlier to apologize to you about that.” 

Takumi turned to Makoto in stunned surprise. “She’s not?”

“Sorry, but she needed to get some parts in Akihabara, and you know how long she takes while she’s there,” Makoto explained to him. “She’s not going to be here in person until tomorrow night at the earliest.”

A frown formed on the high school boy’s face. “Aww… And I really wanted to see Mayumi-san’s genius in action again.”

A scowl crossed Makoto’s face for an instant, but it went unnoticed by Takumi who only saw his friend’s large smile as she leaned forward with her hands hiding a notebook and manila folder behind her back. If Takumi hadn’t been friends with Makoto since middle school, he most likely wouldn’t have noticed the notebook and folder. The manner in which she leaned forward emphasized her chest which even Takumi had to admit was large for her stature, though he would never say that out loud. Unlike his classmates, he could hold his composure and could act normally despite his adolescent mind’s ability to be distracted by an attractive figure. He had grown used to seeing his friend over the years after all…

And they were just friends…

“You don’t have to worry about that, Taku. She did say you can try out the machine. Actually, she was wondering if you could help her further her research.”

“Further? How?” 

Makoto handed the notebook and folder to Takumi. Upon opening the folder he saw several photographs. They were photographs of small rats. They were not pigmy rats, but very small rats that were the size of a push pin that was in the background of the picture. His curiosity piqued, the high schooler opened up the notebook and began skimming his mentor’s notes as best as he could. What he found amazed him.

“Sis finished animal testing and said it was safe to use on living beings. It seems there was no issue with compressing small animals. Since there’s no problem with animals, she was about to…”

Takumi nodded distractedly. He was intently looking into Mayumi’s documents. He couldn’t quite grasp the complex algorithms or concepts of how Compression worked, but the results of the tests were very clear. It was possible to reduce the size of living beings without harming them. Physically, compression increased the durability of shrunken objects greatly due to something Mayumi had termed Dual-Structure Layering and mentally, the test specimens were able to perform at the same level as they originally did. Compressed mice were just as able to navigate mazes as when they were in the regular state.

“Hey Taku, are you listening?”

Words such as dimensional and relativity appeared in the research notes. Dual-Structure Layering apparently applied some form of energy to an object’s atoms. In doing so, compressed objects and people were able to survive the compression while maintaining their lives and original properties. There were no issues with breathing different sized oxygen or drinking different sized water. In fact, there seemed to be no major issues with compression.

“Damnit. Hey, Taku! Mayu-nee wanted you to do something, y’know!”

“Huh?”

Takumi was so lost in thought deciphering his mentor’s notebook, he jumped when he finally realized Makoto had been calling his name. A frustrated expression was on her face.

“Sorry, Neko. What did you say?”

“As I was saying. Mayu-nee wanted some actual opinions from people about the compression experience. She also wanted to run a few tests with humans. Would you be willing to give it a try?”

“A try?” Takumi tilted his head. “You mean, compress myself? I don’t even know how to use the machine.”

Makoto nodded and took off her gaming/reading glasses, placing them on a table to the side. She stuck her tongue out with a playful smile. “Sis said since she couldn’t make it tonight, I could act in her place. She’s shown me how to use it before. I was actually going to be a test subject too, but she trusts your opinion more than mine.”

Trust? Hearing that made Takumi a little elated. If Mayumi was fine with him staying the night to work then even when she was gone, he could… No, he didn’t want to get ahead of himself…

“Well, I guess I am pretty objective when it comes to making observations…”

The high school boy hid his mouth behind his hand because he knew he was smiling stupidly from hearing that second-hand praise. He couldn’t hide his face any longer however when Makoto grabbed his arm and pressed her body close to it. He dropped the notebook and folder from his friend’s surprise attack. He was caught off guard. His face was beat red as Makoto placed his arm between her breasts.

“Neko?” Takumi tried to turn his face into stone as quickly as he could before Makoto could look up and see his expression.

“Jeez, you are a sucker for sis, aren’t you?” Makoto asked him. She didn’t see his flustered face because she was looking down. She did not want him to see and he was unable to notice the bittersweet smile she had on her face from saying that. “It’s just for a day, and I know how to turn you back. So don’t worry too much about it. ”

A day of being reduced in size… According to what he had read, he wouldn’t be in any danger, and Makoto could change him back if anything came up… He was a little afraid of the danger of changing his own body, especially in a way that defied what he knew about the laws of physics, but it was Mayumi’s request… and he’d be spending the night with Makoto helping his mentor out with her research… 

“Ahem… Alright,” Takumi cleared his throat and agreed after he slipped away from his friend’s grip. “I’ll leave operating things to you. I was hoping to see this baby in action anyways. Besides, after putting my own circuit into this, I just have to see how this thing works.”

Makoto nodded and moved around the Compression Chamber. There was a switch at the base of the platform. Flipping the switch, the retractable dome on the chamber began to open up. At the same time, the monitors of the computers attached to the machine flickered on.  Takumi stepped into the center of the platform as Makoto approached the set of computers.

“You’ll want to sit down,” Makoto advised. “One design issue Sis complained about was the size of the dome. It’s just not big enough for now.”

Takumi did as asked, but seeing Makoto type on the keyboard key by key with a single finger, he was concerned.

“Are you sure you know how to do this?”

“No problem. Sis did so many tests to see if it still worked after she moved this into the house. Just leave it to me.”

A sudden thump from the platform alerted Takumi to the dome starting to close again. It was a little cramped inside the chamber. As far as he could tell, there were no visible openings in the chamber, but he could feel cool, fresh air in the chamber that had to come from the platform. He was thankful for this because the dome closed shut. There were no cracks in the chamber, meaning no light could enter either. He would have to wait for Makoto to open the device again which, according to the humming sounds from the base of the platform, would take some time as the machine was only starting up. Until Compression was over, he would be in the dark.

That may have been a good thing. If Takumi had been able to look outside the chamber, he would have seen Makoto initializing the Compression Chamber with the biggest smile plastered on her face. It was no warm smile he would have been acquainted with. It was the smile of a predator that had cornered its prey.

The moment Makoto activated the machine, Takumi’s chance for escaping his friend’s tricks had shrunk along with him.